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Kimberly Shaw, on a waiting list for child care assistance, was discharged from the Alabama National Guard because she had no one to care for her daughter, Alexandria, 2.Child Care
Pinch blocks rise from poverty
Tax benefits do not provide enough to pay for loss of quality care
Jenny Smith, her family's sole wage earner, receives a child care subsidy for Nicholas and Rebecca, but her 17-month-old daughter, Alyssa, has been on Alabama's waiting list since she was born.
Income guidelines for child care are so tight that a year-end bonus causes a low-wage worker like Rebecca Lochamy of Cleveland, Ala., to pay extra for day care for her son, Anthony, 4.
Former National Guard Reservist Kimberly Shaw works at a facility that provides child care subsidies, but has been on a waiting list for assistance since her 2-year-old daughter, Alexandria, was born.
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MOBILE, Ala. — National Guard reservist Kimberly Shaw was called up for combat duty in February 2003 as the U.S. military prepared to invade Iraq.
She was willing to go.
But the government that was sending the 24-year-old single mom to battle offered Shaw no help with child care expenses for her 5-month-old daughter, although she qualified for it.
Days after Alexandria was born, Shaw had sought help from a government program that subsidizes child care expenses for the working poor. She was exactly the kind of person the program was meant to help: a mother in financial need who was working and going to school, not living on welfare.
She was put on a waiting list. The program was out of money.
Unable to get assistance and with no one to care for her child if she were sent overseas, Shaw asked for a transfer to another Guard unit. The military simply discharged her.
Federally subsidized child care, a cornerstone of welfare reforms credited with moving more than 2.5 million people into the work force in the late 1990s, is a program in deep financial crisis. Funding for the program, which grew 49 percent during the last three years of the Clinton administration, is today barely keeping pace with inflation.
During the first three years of the Bush administration, child care funding grew 5 percent, to $4.8 billion. That was not nearly enough to maintain services in a program that was already helping only one in seven eligible children.
The Bush tax cuts have done little to help low-income parents like Kelly Gnoza, who has been on a waiting list for child care assistance since her son, Bailey, was born two years ago.
The 28-year-old Summerdale, Ala., waitress typically earns $300 a week. She pays $100 a week in child care. Although Gnoza qualifies for assistance, federal cuts force her to pay the entire bill.
A single mother with Gnoza’s income would have received $485 in tax cuts, just enough to cover her child care expenses for four and a half weeks.
Without help, many low-income parents opt for less expensive, unlicensed child care or leave young children unattended. Others simply fall back into welfare, further straining government resources and diminishing the possibility of ending their poverty.
Compounding the problem, the number of low-income working parents who qualify for help has risen in the past three years. And states, which administer the program and put up matching funds, have suffered severe budget shortfalls that prevent them from increasing their contributions.
Across the country, states have taken draconian measures to deal with the financial crunch.
In California, more than 280,000 children are on the state’s waiting list. Nationwide, there are more than 500,000 children on waiting lists.
At least 39 states have cut the amount of subsidies, forcing even the poorest parents to pay larger portions of child care bills. In Louisiana, where more than 17 percent of the population lives in poverty, parents once deemed too poor to contribute to child care expenses now must pay at least 30 percent of the bill.
In Sulphur, La., 24-year-old Kristi Jones used to get $224 from the government to help pay her $340-a-month child care bill. This year, her assistance was cut by 38 percent to $140. A single mother with Jones’ income would keep an extra $62 a month under the Bush tax cut — $22 a month short of making her original child care subsidy.
Jones, a secretary and single mom, makes $8.75 an hour — taking home $1,106 a month. She pays a total of $750 a month for her rent, car payment, insurance and utilities.
“It’s really rough,” Jones said. “By the time I buy diapers and wipes, I have about $60 for groceries.”
In addition to cutting subsidies, at least 31 states now make it more difficult to qualify for assistance. In Michigan, officials lowered the amount of money parents can make and still get assistance by 25 percent. It also raised the co-pay 508 percent for a family of three with an income of $23,505.
Changes like these cleared thousands from waiting lists nationwide and prevented tens of thousands more from even applying.
In fact, Michigan and 26 other states maintain no waiting list.
States divert funds
As welfare rolls shrank in the late 1990s, states diverted billions of the unspent funds to make up substantial shortfalls in their child care budgets. In 2000, welfare funds accounted for more than half the child care budget nationwide.
But with welfare rolls now on the rise, funds transferred to child care have dropped since 2000 by a total of $472 million. As a result, millions of low-income children nationwide are on waiting lists or denied child care assistance.
Without subsidies, many families are forced to spend more than half their income on child care — which averages between $4,000 and $6,000 a year for a single child. In every state but Vermont, child care costs are higher than the average tuition at a public four-year college, according to a report by the Children’s Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
Cuts in subsidies have put quality child care beyond the reach of many low-income working parents.
Tiffany McCants is a case in point.
The 27-year-old Mobile, Ala., mother of three has been unable to return to her job of eight years as a cashier for supermarket giant Winn-Dixie since the birth of her twins in May.
McCants, who gets a $27-a-week subsidy for her 9-year-old son, was put on the waiting list when she applied for assistance for the twins. At the time, there were 14,000 people on the waiting list in Alabama, some of them for more than two years.
Day care for the twins would cost between $150 and $212 a week. McCants, who was a part-time worker despite her years of service and desire to work full time, made $300 a week on average before taxes.
McCants, who has completed a year and a half of community college, is not only unable to return to work, but has put off plans to return to school. She knows that without furthering her education, her low-income status is unlikely to change.
Jenny Smith’s college plans are also on hold.
The 24-year-old mother of three works as a receptionist in Mobile while her husband finishes college at the University of South Alabama.
She receives a child care subsidy for her two oldest children, but her 17-month-old daughter, Alyssa, has been on the state’s waiting list since she was born.
Smith — the family’s sole wage earner — takes home $1,400 a month but pays $560 of it in child care. Without the subsidies, her child care payments would be $986 each month.
Alyssa was born prematurely and, until recently, Smith was paying $140 a month for medical expenses from Alyssa’s birth. Between food and other basic expenses, the Smiths are tapped out.
“We can’t get caught up with anything,” said Smith, who typically uses her income tax refund each year to pay arrears for child care. “My other option is to quit work and go on welfare.”
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Cherri Poole is similarly trapped.
Poole, 28, earns $480 every other week as a medical assistant. Child care for the single mother of three consumes $190 a week even with a $120 subsidy for her two oldest. Her youngest child has spent the first 10 months of her life on Florida’s waiting list, along with 46,000 other children.
“If I had to pay child care for all three, I would probably have to go on welfare,” Poole said.
Many already have.
One in eight parents waiting for child care assistance in Arizona had to quit their jobs because they couldn’t pay for child care on their own, according to the Children’s Action Alliance, an Arizona advocacy group.
Even parents who get child care assistance find themselves punished by the program’s restrictive income limits. That was the case with Rebecca Lochamy.
Lochamy, 42, earns $7.42 an hour and knows the frustration of living on the edge. She receives a subsidy for her 4-year-old son, but still pays $35 a week for child care.
The Cleveland, Ala., woman counts on a $700 year-end bonus for perfect attendance at work for additional spending money. But the one-time boost to her income in December lowers the amount of subsidy she gets in January.
That month, Lochamy must pay an additional $160 toward child care.
Help is out of reach
Without government assistance, professional child care is simply out of reach for many parents.
After Tanya Lindsay’s husband died in a traffic accident near Birmingham, Ala., in May, she took a job for $7.50 an hour in the kitchen of a local hospital to support her two children.
She applied for federal child care assistance, but was turned away because there was no money.
The day care bill for her 18-month-old daughter and 5-month-old son was $170 a week — 75 percent of her take-home pay. The rest of the money disappeared in diapers and baby food.
When the bill climbed to $184 a week in July, she knew she couldn’t afford to keep her children in a state-recognized facility. Lindsay, who had moved back in with her parents, took her children out of day care and placed them with a family friend who charges her $350 a month.
“The lady who takes care of my little girl is really good with her, and I’m very grateful to her,” Lindsay said, “but my little girl was learning things at the day care that other girls her age didn’t know.”
While Lindsay found someone to watch her children, others have nowhere to turn. For many parents, there are only bad options.
Nakia Burgess is living proof.
Burgess, who had been unemployed for three months, was just starting a new job and couldn’t afford day care for her 3-year-old daughter, Asante. She had tried to get a child care subsidy.
“The gentleman in the child care office said that the money was finished for the quarter and that he would have to put me on a waiting list,” the 28-year-old Atlanta mother recalls. “He said that even if they got more money the next quarter, there was no guarantee I would get help.”
Burgess said she couldn’t take her daughter back to the lady who used to care for her because she owed the woman $300.
“She was willing to watch my child if I paid the money I owed,” Burgess said. “But I didn’t have the money.”
So Burgess took her daughter to work and left her in the car. During the day, she checked in on Asante several times.
By midafternoon, the little girl had passed out in the Atlanta heat. The child was rushed to the hospital but died.
Burgess was sentenced to five years’ probation in March after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2002 death of Asante.
Burgess readily admits that what she did was wrong. But she said at the time she felt she had no choice.
“I don’t think you understand what it is like when you have to make a choice between working to feed your child and paying for day care,” Burgess said. “Nobody should have to live like this. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Copyright © 2004
The Detroit News.
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